Racism Is a Business

So begins this fascinating op-ed video from Akala, an English rapper, poet, and activist, who tackles everyday racism by linking it to the centuries of marketing and public relations designed to support the idea that white is right and everyone else is a problem.

“White Jesus” gets a shout-out, as does the slave trade, white savior motifs in films, the news media’s willingness to portray black people as drug dealers and thugs, and the multi-billion dollar skin bleaching industry. (Forty percent of Chinese women and 77% of Nigerian women bleach their skin, according to the World Health Organization.)

His point? The marketing of the supremacy of whiteness is a real business and has affected the way all of us think for centuries.

But it’s the little things that will get you down today.“Everyday racism is the normalized experience that we encounter daily based on our difference from the white norm,” he says. Akala talks about his own experiences with slights and worse, from the police, professors, people on the street – and calls out those moments when he finds himself looking at others with suspicion. “Now in the context of global injustice, these might seem trivial, but in fact, these daily hostilities lay the ground for much larger systemic violence.”

I’d originally clicked on the video thinking that he would offer tactics for managing these encounters in the moment. I was surprised and delighted to discover I was wrong. His answer is the only correct one: Just do the work. No short cuts. “Racism seems to be one of the only problems that some people, conveniently, believe that we can solve without first analyzing its cause and plotting its destruction as any concerned doctor would with any other disease.”

His call to action is a reminder that intent matters – in advertising, media, art, leadership, and everyday conversation. “We must understand the relationship between top down propaganda and the bias that we carry,” he says. “Fighting prejudice both in society and within ourselves is a key part of the search for justice.”

As always, thank you for the work you’re doing. Today, I’ll be doing mine, with my new favorite artist, Akala, rapping in the background. I’ve decided that he’s probably my cousin, and I should support the family. It seems like the right thing to do.

On Point

P&G wants us to talk about “the talk”

P&G continues to lead the conversation about bias and race, and now the company wants us to do our share. They’ve released this outstanding ad featuring a series of black mothers having “the talk” with their kids; short, touching vignettes that show them explaining to their children that the world doesn’t see them for who they are, and that’s going to make their lives difficult. One little girl is confused by a shopkeeper’s comment. “You are not ‘pretty for a black girl.’ You are beautiful. Period. Okay?” And then there’s the moment when the driving lesson gets real. “This is not about you getting a ticket. This is about you not coming home.” The two-minute spot supports the company’s My Black Is Beautiful initiative, and ends with a call to action: “Let’s talk about ‘the talk’ so we can end the need to have it.” Bring tissues, then head to the campaign’s landing page for more real-world stories and perspectives.

An ad placed by Detroit real estate mogul Dan Gilbert took on an online life of its own this weekend. The ad, “See Detroit Like We Do,” showed a street scene of smiling, happy white people, living their best lives. That was an immediate non-starter. “Detroit is 85% Black. This poster is 0% Black” tweeted writer, law professor, and Detroiter Khaled Beydoun. The Twitter backlash was both entertaining and on point; people who were already concerned about gentrification called into question the developer’s plans for a downtown project. Gilbert apologized Sunday night, saying “we screwed up badly,” and canceled the ad campaign.

“Girls Trip” pulls in $30 million over the weekend, and white people like films with black people in them, okay?

The evidence is clear: Films featuring primarily black casts appeal to a wide variety of people. The latest example is the raucous Girls Trip, which stars Regina Hall, Tiffany Haddish, Jada Pinkett Smith and Queen Latifah as four lifelong friends who head to New Orleans for some raunch and adventure. The film killed it at the box office this past weekend; at $30.4 million, it was the best opening for an R-rated comedy in two years. (Ticket buyers were 51% black and 38% white.) The only movie that fared better over the weekend was the war epic Dunkirk. Here’s my controversial take: If Zayn Malik had been given even a walk-on part in Girls Trip it would have done better than Dunkirk and everyone knows it.

A new CDC report shows that black and Native women in the U.S. are more likely to die by homicide than other ethnicities

The agency examined homicide statistics in 18 states between 2003 and 2014. While the overall homicide rate for women was found to be 2 per every 100,000 women, the rate soared to 4.4 per 100,000 women for black women. For indigenous and Alaska Native women it was 4.3 per 100,000 – which doesn’t account for the extraordinary number of Native women who disappear and remain unaccounted for.

The Woke Leader

When jobs have a gender

Turns out gender bias disadvantages everybody. In a welcome addition to the reams of research showing how gender bias impacts women at work, a new study shows that when certain jobs are considered to be “female” like nurses, they are afforded less authority, even if they are held by a man. The study also addresses how jobs become gendered. In an examination of the experiences of microfinance loan officers, a relatively new job category which is ambiguously gendered, found that clients who worked with a female loan officer were more likely to miss loan payments than those who worked with male officers.

It is a terrific profile of the extraordinary executive who has been hired to reshape Uber’s public image. Saint John has led an interesting life (her childhood was spent around the globe), and through a series of lightly designed accidents, had opportunities to shape culture working first with Spike Lee, then at Pepsi, as head of global marketing for Beats and ultimately, at Apple. After she brought her Uber driver with her to a dinner with Iggy Pop (long story), she got the attention of Arianna Huffington, an Uber board member. Now, as the Style Section reports, she is being tasked with saving the company. It could work.

People leave organizations because of culture, say talent experts Steve Frost and Danny Kalman. Does your culture allow diverse talent to thrive? Their main point: One size fits all leadership development strategies tend to favor the dominant group, to the detriment of diverse candidate pools. Their best tips involve supporting strong candidates who are either uncomfortable working the room to sing their own praises, like introverts, or those who are already actively enhancing the business in employee resource groups.